Edge
by Artificially Intelligent Data Anomaly
Summary: A collection of short stories about what it's like to live on the edge...and what it's like when you've fallen off. Chapter 3: Lonely Data Scraps. The PC who is not meets his Goddess, who is also not.
1. Dream and Reality

"Skeith, Innis, Magus... I can't read the rest... The inscription is faded."-Kite

.hack Infection

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Dream and Reality.

_Which one am I in?_

_Who am I?_

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Dream and Reality. We dance on the knife's edge. Everyone does. Always performing our tricks for the world. "In the land of the twilight, under the moon, we dance for the idiots." The higher powers control us all. Be it a president, a dictator, a parent, or an administrator; it doesn't matter. They all control us one way or another.

Yes, many think to themselves that they are secretly rebelling against their suppressors in their minds. _I may do what they tell me to do, but I don't agree with it. They'll never control me. Not completely, anyways. _Even the simple-minded fools who think these thoughts are being controlled by unseen powers even higher than the ones visible.

We're all being used.

Back to the knife's edge; the microscopically skinny line that gets thinner and harder to stand on by the second. Eventually, someone will fall off into either side.

Would you rather fall into the Realm of Reality, or the Domain of Dream? Many think that the choice is obvious.

Reality is a cruel master. He whips his slaves into submission and exposes them raw to the world. Many have gone insane in Reality's Realm. They couldn't take the pressure of the whole world bearing down on them. They snapped. The poor souls couldn't even make it to Dream in their demented minds, just because they had fallen on the wrong side of the knife.

Dream is a deceitful mistress. No one knows any real information about her, and no one ever will. She can comfort those with her sweet embrace, and then tear them apart fragment by fragment until they are nothing more but a forgotten scrap of data, floating around in cyber space. She is not to be trusted.

Some say that Dream is much more dangerous than Reality. Reality is straightforward; if he is about to hurt you, you'll see it coming. But Dream is secretive; that warm, happy hug of hers is actually hiding a dagger, ready to be sent straight into your back.

Dream and Reality are not the only to places one can be. There's that thin edge of that knife, just waiting to flip over. That's where I live, and that's where you live...

...For now. That can change at any time, though.

Sometimes, someone on the edge gets curious. They want to know what it's like in the Domain of Dream or the Realm of Reality. Usually, it's Mistress Dream that gets a visit. In these cases, a person from the edge creates something, be it a book, movie, play, or videogame. That creation in turn is used to get to the Domain of Dream.

Many people are not happy with how they live, being in both Dream and Reality at the same time. That's when some force of fate throws the creation in front of their eyes and gives them a taste of what could be. Naturally, the people instantly buy the creation and use it in their own excursions, pushing themselves farther and farther over the edge, millimeter by millimeter.

This is when it happens. Someone goes a _little _too far over the edge and falls in. They visit a place only the "incurably insane" can get to. In a way, these select few are very lucky. But from another perspective, they are the unluckiest souls alive.....Though most will not be alive for long.

Coma.

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_Dream and Reality._

_Light and Darkness._

_Right and Wrong?_

_Opposites; never to meet, to integrate, to combine._

But what if they did?


	2. Cyber and Nature

_Author's Note: Forget everything you know about the two girls who appear in the opening of .hack SIGN. Do it. Now. I just decided to use them as examples. This really has nothing to do with who they both might be in the series. Also, this takes place the split second Tsukasa goes into a coma. That beautiful split second where she was both in Dream and Reality at the same time._

_Spoilers? One big one if you don't know Tsukasa's gender. Oops, I guess I already just gave that away._

_Also, I have decided to, instead of publish many, many one-shots, publish them all in one fan fiction called Edge. This whole thing is about being pushed to your limits, to the point of insanity. Not all of them will be like chapter one, just to let you know. Some may not even be accurate. They're not supposed to be. This whole thing is one big "what-if", so to speak._

_And don't worry, not every chapter will have an author's note attached to it, especially not one as large as this. Plus, I will just about never bother you at the end of the fan fiction. I think that to be a bit unnecessary and cruel. Thank you all SO much for the reviews. They mean a lot to me. They really do. Look for their replies in my bio. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own any portion, large or small, of the .hack franchise. Sadly, I never will. Not even stock. I do, however, own this fanfiction. Also, anything else that isn't this fanfiction or apart of the .hack franchise and appears in this fanfiction I do not own. Such as Toy Story, for example… Don't ask. This lasts for the entire fanfiction, just to let you know._

_Note: Tsukasa is pronounced Ts-ka-sa, with no emphasis on any particular syllable._

"Explain my ass! You don't know anything!" - BlackRose .hack Outbreak

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_Cyber and Nature._

_Which one am I?_

_What am I?_

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"Uh…Um…What?" _I am lying face up on the ground. How did I get this way? Why can't I see? _I sat up and looked around. Nothing. Had I gone blind? I glanced around again, yet all I saw was darkness. _What happened? Why can't I remember? _I blinked.

_Who _am_ I? _

Suddenly, I noticed a spark of red somewhere far off in the darkness. "Hello? Can you hear me? Hello?" I called. The spark moved slightly, twitching back and forth, up and down._ What is going on?_

Then the spark seemed to get closer, yet I was not moving. I squinted at the spark and realized that it didn't seem to be coming toward me either. "What in the world is going on?" So many questions, yet so little answers.

A voice sounded off in my head. It was not my own, but one of a woman who was much older than me. "What in _The World _is right," it said. I sensed emphasis on "the world", but my mind was too jumbled to piece together what she meant.

I didn't have time to contemplate these matters, for the distance between me and the red spark had just magically disappeared; as if we were never separated by what had seemed like miles. The distance just melted away, fell into a bottomless pit.

Now that I was closer, I saw that the red spark was not a spark; it was a woman. She was wearing what seemed to be a red bodysuit with bright yellow markings on it. It was the oddest thing. I gasped upon realizing what the yellow markings reminded me of._ Those are circuits!_

Another thing I noticed was that the woman was wearing a visor or some sort._ What is that…? It's so odd. _The headgear completely covered her eyes, wrapped around the back of her head, and covered her ears._ Weird…_

The oddest thing about her was that she was dancing. Dancing, of all things! It was beautiful; her arms and legs flowing around her frame like water. Even though I could not see her eyes, I could see the confident (and maybe even arrogant) smile that played across her lips. She knew what she was doing.

Her hair was wild; spiky, untamed, and savage on the top and flowing, long, and wavy going down her back. The color could be compared to dry mud. Even though the color wasn't anything special, it somehow reminded me of something very familiar…though I didn't think that I could ever place where I had seen it before.

I kneeled on the ground and watched her dance for a little longer, only to find that I wasn't on ground at all. There wasn't any ground!! I gulped as my eyes bulged when I noticed I was being supported by the infinite darkness below, as if it was solid. Pushing my hand against the mysteriously firm darkness - in order to test it - I found that it was only solid when I wanted it to be._ Well, isn't that odd…._

Curious, I quickly scanned the background the woman was dancing again. What I had mistaken for skyscrapers when I had first saw them _were _skyscrapers, but none that I had ever seen before. First of all, I could see through them. See through them! Some were made out of what seemed to be a blue translucent material, while others were made of green translucent material. They didn't seem to be stable. Yet somehow, I recognized them from somewhere…a place where I had been before._ But where?_

As the dancer's performance seemed to pick up speed, I saw what I recognized as highways. There weren't any cars driving on them, but that's what they looked like to me._ Aren't those a little too thin to be highways, though…? _They were great bands of the same kind of translucent material that looped around and around the buildings, up into the vast black sky and back down again.

Even though it seemed like I had hours to ponder all of this, it had only taken several seconds, for by that time the dancer was done with her performance, and suddenly decided to do a flip into the darkness, which had just then turned into a beautiful sky-blue gateway into yet even more darkness. I leaned over the platform of shadows that I was on and looked at her falling form.What would it feel like to fall down into that cold void and not worry? What would it feel like…to just let go?

I closed my eyes and imagined it, and it felt great. I felt the edge I had been kneeling on slip away and morph into air. Falling into the abyss, tumbling over and over again while having a graceful purpose in mind, felt wonderful. The air rushed past my face and into my hair, pulling it up. The spikes atop my head became even more pronounced. My arms and legs moved around me like a ballerina's; though these movements had a purpose, they were going to ignite something. I opened my eyes by a small fraction behind my headset and smiled slightly.

_What? Spikes? Headset?_

My eyes widened in horror as I screamed, "What is going on?!" That scream never made it out into the open. The dancer suppressed it and smiled even more. She just kept moving along to the twilight beat. The beat that only she could hear and ever will hear. Nothing else mattered; she just had to keep moving, keep fulfilling the wishes of the twilight beat.

_Twilight beat? _I pondered the words over and over again and began to smile myself. Okay, I'd go along with what was happening. _Hah… I must be going insane… But then again, if being insane was so wonderful, why was anyone sane in the first place? Ah, the questions of life…_

The dancer spun around in the darkness, still moving to the music only she could hear. My mind wandered, and I eventually felt my mind - no, my soul - break off from hers. It was as if something weakly tugged at my heart for a moment, then subsided. The tug was barely noticeable, and that was what bothered me. Shouldn't have I felt more than that if I was separated from another being or something? When we had…"merged"…it had felt like I was still I and not she at all._ Are we one in the same? How is that…._

I never had the chance to finish my thoughts, for a flurry of images came to my eyes as we whirled into the darkness. They were too fast for me to see clearly, and many of them blurred. My mind felt like it was overloaded and about to shut down, but I knew I had to concentrate on the images in front of me. Maybe they'd hold some clue as to what was going on. Fighting my nausea, I stared at the whirling colors before me.

Once my eyes had finally adjusted to their speed, I saw extraordinary things. There was a boy with long, pale-colored hair and orange markings on his cheeks, gazing almost longingly out into some seemingly wonderful paradise. Soon after I saw a brief flash of a girl with lavender eyes, brown hair, and a blank gaze that seemed to be a permanent attachment to her face.

Then I saw a boy and a girl. The pale boy carried twin daggers and wore orange, while the tan girl carried a gigantic blade and wore multi-colored armor with thorny-vine markings on it. They posed close together, and each wore the same determined, if not ferocious, gaze. Then I saw the duo again, this time appearing much younger and happier.

They soon disappeared, replaced by a white-haired girl with blue markings on her face. She carried a lance that matched the color of her odd armor/cloth combination clothes. Finally, I was shown a picture of two females posing together, looking determined but happy. By that time, my eyes had hurt so badly that I had to blink and look away; so I didn't get a good look at them.

"What do these all mean?" I murmured aloud. I sensed that all of these people were important somehow, and they were all connected in some deep, meaningful way. They may never meet one another, but their paths in destiny seemed to intersect so many times, it would be hard for them to forget about each other and what took place between them all. I felt that I, too, was somehow apart of all of this. Not to have spoken egotistically, but I felt that the whole thing somehow started with…me.

_Who _am_ I?_

The next things I saw weren't images, but words. They flashed in my mind's eye so quickly I almost didn't catch any of them. _Twilight, New, Gods, Kite, Shugo, Reina, BlackRose, Mai, Tokuoka, Mia, Sieg, Balmung, Orca, Aura, Morganna, Tsukasa._ The last three words sounded off in my head as clear as a bell, causing me to forget the others instantly._ Aura…Morganna…Tsukasa…? Where, oh where have I heard those names before? _I pondered, falling further and further into the darkness, the dancer silent five feet away from me.

If the thought to open my eyes and actually look at the dancer had crossed my mind, maybe things would have worked out differently. But no, Fate had different plans for me. If I had looked at her, maybe I would have noticed that she was motionless, falling feet first as I fell headfirst. Maybe I would have noticed her smug smile, the way she could tell what I was thinking, and that she was thinking about how easy it was to lure someone with the mysteries of the Unknown; the Dream. She knew that I would soon be in her clutches and that it would be too late for me…forever. Depending upon whether or not the plans she had made worked, of course._Well, _she must have thought,_ I think it's time to show her what she needs to see._

The flurry of motion had stopped, and now I was just falling._ Where are we going? _I thought. Everything had a purpose, and I wanted to know what the purpose of this infinite darkness was.

"You know, you really do think too much," someone close to me said. "Why isn't it possible in your world for one thing, just one, tiny thing, to not have a purpose? Are you scared of losing control? My dear child, I really do hope that you're past this point, for you were never in control of anything you ever did. Everyone you've ever known has strung you along. Your parents, your teachers, hell, even your friends. All of the things that you've done and said have led up to this very point. Destiny's calling, and you must accept the charges."

I opened my eyes to see the dancer/woman next to me. She was falling headfirst with her arms out in front of her, as if she were diving into some deep, dark ocean._ Well, maybe she - we - are… _Her black lipstick made her coy smile all the more pronounced against her pale skin and the glow of her headset. I opened my mouth to reply, but I never got the chance.

In the darkness that had consumed my vision came lights. They were rectangular and had pictures of different things on them. "Screens…?" I wondered. The woman beside me didn't reply, and I didn't expect her to. The screens all showed different things. One had a picture of as snowy valley, inhabited with terrifying ogre-like monsters. Another had a picture of a dense, lush orange forest, filled with beautiful, young women who were casting spells on a man with green markings on his face. He glared behind his eye patch and quickly dealt with the witches using his katana.

Then all of _a _sudden the screens stopped appearing. It was dark again. I twisted around so I was falling with my shoulder first instead of my head. I could see the dancer, who seemed to be illuminated by some light within her. She just smiled at me. Keeping her diving pose, she nodded to something in the void, up ahead of us. I looked where she had nodded, but I didn't see anything.

But then I _did _see something, and it terrified me and filled me with awe at the same time. A child hovered three feet above her white-sheeted bed. Her own dress and the cloth that wrapped around her neck matched her almost blindingly white skin and hair. She glowed of white; like a snowflake._ White… Is she good or evil? _I found myself pondering.

_Good and evil, Dream and Reality, Light and Darkness, Love and Hate…. _

_Cyber and Nature._

_Which one is right; which one is real? Will I ever know? Will any of us?_

The image of the Girl in White soon vanished and was replaced with something much more beautiful: a shining gold Bracelet. It was beautiful in every way possible. The grooves in the soft gold material fascinated me; it's beautiful shine captivated me. Without realizing it, I reached out my hands in order to take it in my clutches. I wanted it so badly, and I didn't even realize it.

The dancer next to me smiled, although I didn't know it at the time. Yes, everything must have been going according to plan. _Touch the Bracelet, my dear. That's all you have to do. Touch it. Touch it. _She knew she could influence my mind easily._ Why? How? Will I ever know?_

We were so close that I could touch the bracelet now. My hands shot out and grasped the metal that I had expected to be warm, but instead I had found that it was very cold. My grasp tightened around the beautiful thing as we continued to fall._ It's so wonderful! It makes me feel so alive! It's as if I have complete control over everything, and it feels great!_ As I thought this, the Bracelet grew even colder in my hands as I ecstatically cried out in happiness. I didn't know why I was so happy; the bracelet just made me feel that way.

The bracelet abruptly jerked out of my hands and erupted in a ball of shining, beautiful light. I tried to pull back, but I was too slow and ended up being pulled straight into the shining mass. I heard an enraged scream, but I hadn't a clue as to where it came from. All former thoughts of happiness had vanished from my head. By then all I wanted to do was get out of this horrible nightmare.

That was another odd thing about my situation. Sometimes everything felt like a beautiful dream; while other times it felt like a blood-curdling nightmare. Odd, wasn't it? All things I had thought to be beautiful turned into some horrible creation that wanted to do nothing but harm me.Reality is unmasked brutality, while Dream is hidden brutality.

That is the attribute that can make Dream much worse than Reality. You never expect anything to happen until it's too late.

Once again, many images raced through my mind. There were girls with odd hair, face markings, and clothing. One had a gigantic blade that greatly contrasted against her tan skin. Another was pale with blue hair, had angel wings, and carried a long-handled hatchet of some sort. The final one looked almost completely normal with her long hair and headband, but something about the eyes told me otherwise.

Then I saw a man. He had blue markings covering his face and bare torso. His expression told me that he looked skeptical about something. I got the feeling that he was older than the three girls.

That was when I saw…him. The character was so familiar, yet so foreign. _(How do I know that's a "character"?) _A brown cap with sideways diamonds covered his silver hair. The orange markings on his face reminded me of something else that was orange…though I could not remember what._ A fruit? Someone's hair color? ……A computer screen? _We locked eyes, the boy and I, and he looked sad. So very, very sad. Almost mournful of something he had lost, perhaps…?

The thing I had noticed about him most was the vibes I had gotten from him. My eyes told me male, but my mind and heart? …They told me otherwise, which was odd. Another thing I felt from him was some sort of deep connection. I felt I knew him better than he knew himself, I just couldn't remember anything of him; that was all. The information was buried somewhere deep in my mind. It was just waiting for me to find it.

Out of the blue (close to literally), the dancer woman came up from behind me as we fell and grabbed me. Her grip was firm as she held me in almost a bear hug._ Toy Story_, I thought._ She's holding me the way Buzz held Woody up in the sky in Toy Story. _I scrunched my face and decided that I didn't want to be this close to the dancer.

"Let go," I whispered. "Please, just let go of me." I knew that any struggling on my behalf would've been in vain, but I tried to do so anyways.

"Sorry, but something has just grabbed my attention…Something important. You're going to have to come with…" I shuddered in her arms, terrified. One thing was for sure: This woman was pure evil. The thing is, I know this now, but I also know one other thing. She is evil, but she brings forth light and good from her darkness unintentionally. What a paradox.

"But remember, little one. As long as you walk with me, I shall protect you."

I gasped; that had struck a chord with me for some reason. It just upset me so badly for some reason. I started to shudder even more violently as my breathe came out in great, heaving sobs.

Time to ponder these things grew short as our destination became clear._ Water! Lilac water! We're going to dive! _That was when the woman finally shoved me out of her grasp, put her hands out in front of her in a graceful diver's pose, and dove in silently. Several seconds later, I hit the lilac liquid with a loud, clumsy splash.

That's when it hit me._ Swim! I don't know how to swim! _"I'm going to drown!!" I let out as my head went under, but abruptly cut it off when I found that I could breathe. Not only that, but gravity seemed to have reversed itself; up was down and down was up. Consequentially, I was hurled down even farther into the dry liquid.

_Wait. Dry liquid? This isn't water at all! _It just looked like it… And felt like it._ This is so confusing._

I gradually realized that I was floating on my back, so I decided to crane my neck backwards to see what my surroundings looked like. The same skyscrapers from before greeted my sight, but there were some differences. They were no longer made of the fascinating see-through material, but they were a pale lilac/sliver color. The loopy highways were no longer there, and the windows of the skyscrapers were lit. Behind the skyscrapers, I could almost see smoke rising from the distance. The whole thing looked beautiful, but I felt funny while looking at it. I was looking at something I shouldn't; something I didn't want to look at. Some cold, heartless thing where no one cared about anything but money and their various addictions…

Someplace where a little girl could be beaten daily and no one would notice or care.

Then there was the moon. It was so beautiful. It hung there, like a shining ornament on a Christmas tree. It reminded me of a very pretty, soft light bulb._ So beautiful, so delicate… _I thought to myself._ It looks so soft and warm and kind…_

A ringing of a church bell brought me out of my staring contest with the buildings. It was loud and surprised me to such an extent that I flipped over._Well, at least I'm right-side up now._ I found that I was flanked by two girls. One was that wicked dancer, while the other…

"That girl from before…" It came out something close to a whisper. She seemed bigger, somehow, like she had grown up in the past couple of seconds. Her clothes and hair billowed out around her as she hovered on her back. The soft, white glow of her seemed to ward off the darkness that surrounded us._ So you ended up being good after all…_

"Tsukasa."

The voice rang out and echoed all around us, beckoning to someone. I turned to face the dancer and found that she was looking at the shining girl a little uncomfortably. (From what I could tell by reading body language, mind you. She was wearing a headset visor, after all.)

"Tsukasa."

This time the dancer turned towards me. She stood perfectly straight as she hovered there, and she looked twice as confident anyone I had ever seen. She folded her arms against her red and bright yellow-circuited chest and haughtily smiled. If she had her headset off, I probably would've seen her eyes smirk at me, too.

"Tsukasa. You can live in this world peacefully and happily with no tears or pain. You, this girl, and I can live happily forever. Will you?"

By this time, I gathered that she was referring to me as Tsukasa. I opened my mouth to say to her that I most certainly was not Tsukasa, but then I paused. Maybe I am Tsukasa._ Why would she lie? Why would she lie..? She loves me. She is my friend. She wouldn't do anything to hurt me. _

_That's right. She wouldn't. She is your friend. The only one who cares. You are her brave little boy, Tsukasa. Her brave, brave, good little boy._

I smiled._ Yes, I thought. That is correct. I am her good, brave little boy. She loves me, and I love her. _

_She would never do anything to hurt me._

Right?

"Tsukasa. If you choose the right path - which you will, because I have faith in my good little boy - you will come to me. If not, you shall go to the girl. Understood?" She seemed to gaze at me expectantly.

"…Nani?" I asked. I looked over at the girl again, only to find that by this time she had started to float right-side up as well. Her face was shadowed by her bangs as she shyly and dejectedly looked down at her feet. Her arms and feet just seemed to hang there, like a puppet's.

"Tsukasa. If you go to her, nothing but horrible things will happen for her, you, and me. Look at the world around you. Do you remember where we first met, just awhile ago? Weren't the buildings there pretty? Didn't the looping highways look fun, like roller coasters? Remember them." I closed my eyes and imagined them. They did seem very interesting and fun. They made me want to giggle happily. But I was a boy, and boys do not giggle.

"Good. Now, open your eyes and look around us. Does this world seem like the one you wish to live in?!" My eyes snapped open, and I saw the horrors of which she spoke. The buildings seemed even more sad-looking and depressing than they had before. All pretty lilac color had gone from them; they were just an indifferent gray now. Even the large moon which sat behind them, the one I had thought so beautiful, now looked nasty and waiting to strike while my back was turned.

I sunk to my knees, hovering in the unknown. The whole thing was so overwhelming that I began to cry.

"There, there, Tsukasa. Do not cry. I can make it all go away. All you have to do is come to me." She sounded so warm, yet she did not make one move to come and comfort me. "But be warned: If you go to the girl, you will go back to everything you wished to leave behind. I will not think twice about sending you back." Her tone was cold now, and very harsh. Though when I looked up to her face, tears streaming, I saw a warm, motherly smile on her face.

That did it. I wanted my mother to comfort me so badly. I got up and ran to her, hands outstretched. She smiled at me and threw open her arms, as if to embrace me. Only several feet away, I tripped. I began to fall down into the darkness, when she grabbed out and embraced me._ She's hugging me. I'm so glad that someone finally ca-- _

I let out an inhuman, horrible shriek. A ball of light had encompassed me once again, and this time I felt everything but comfort. Ones and zeros raced around the orbin bands as I screamed. My throat burned, but I couldn't stop. It was so painful. It felt as if I was being torn to bits by miniature claws from the inside out. Then I felt it affect my mind, and everything went black.

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_People fall off of many things. Ladders, steps, everything._

_People also fall off of edges._

_But sometimes people don't fall off of things._

_Sometimes they get_ pulled.

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_Ah.. It burns so badly._

I had a pounding headache. My eyes opened, only to reveal that I was on the ground and apparently inside some gigantic monster's stomach. I flipped over onto my back and saw a pink, soft ceiling lined with a gigantic ribcage of some animal many, many feet above me.

Shakily, I grabbed for my staff and pushed myself up with it. After staggering a few feet, I noticed the pink, sticky substance the dungeon made out of was all over my hands. I connected my middle finger with my thumb, causing the pink stuff to get all over both. I stretched my fingers and watched the weird substance stretch with it. Then I wiped my hand off on my clothes.

_My clothes… _They had somehow transformed into a cream vest and a brown, long-sleeved shirt. My legs were covered with an old-fashioned traveler's skirt of some sort that almost reached the ground. I could feel some sort of pants or slacks under it. I scuffed at the mushy ground with my brown traveler's boots._ All of these clothes are from a long time ago… A boy's traveling clothes. My traveling clothes…? _

I looked around and understood. This was a dungeon. I was a Wavemaster, or a spell-caster, inside of an online game called The World. And for some reason, I could _feel _everything; the weird substance, my scratchy clothes, the smooth surface of my staff, everything.

Everything was different, yet nothing had changed.

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_Gomen nasai for bothering you all at the end of the chapter. I would just like to apologize for the long A/N and my poor writing skills. Please wait for the next chapter._

_Arigatou. _


	3. Lonely Data Scraps I

A/N: Welcome yet again to Edge. I'm terribly sorry about not updating, but now I'm back with a new idea that I really haven't seen done before on here.

I'll try to update more. And to my "You Cad!" fans . . .Sorry! I'll update that story next.

If you like reading disclaimers go to chapter two and stop wasting my time.

Be warned that this gives a way a little bit about GU (nothing that you don't know already, more than likely). Mainly, it's me having fun with what little info we have on what happened and what's going to happen.

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Chapter 3: Lonely Data Scraps

This showcases what it's like to exist solely over the edge, and what it's like to depend on those from the edge to breathe life into you.

. . . Some beings over the edge, however, do not need those from the edge to breathe life into them.

Passion and longing do this for them.

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Hahahaha.

Ha ha hahahah.

Hah. . .

The bright, morbid sound of laughter filled the air and the processing cores of all of the PCs present. That sweet, deranged tinkling of the digital vocal chords was all it took for a small tremor of movement to run throughout the rather dead crowd.

One PC in particular stirred.

Silently, it shook its head and gripped its forehead in pain. This was the sensation that was familiar, yet not.

A PC is a Personal Character. It is the avatar and the extension of the being of its user. It is only bits and scraps of coding, data, and pixels. The breath of life only blows through it and courses through its pale imitation of a body only when its user accessed "The World" and works through it.

This PC was different. It was the PC that was not.

Two aquamarine pools of pure, untouched light sat where its -- no, _his -- _eyes should have been. When the PC that was not drifted into the realm of fake consciousness and reality, there was no true, human consciousness to grant the windows to its cheap, digital soul sentience.

The PC who was not blinked and wiggled his fingers and toes, feeling elated that the Mother who was not had granted him fake life. In the back of his fake consciousness, he dimly wondered how he knew about this Mother who was not, but, just like many real consciousnesses, he disregarded his intuition and turned to his task at hand.

"The World" is not real. It does not exist. Therefore, it is quite logical to assume that PCs are not stored in a mass, virtual warehouse. Also, it is safe to assume that they are not encased in gelatinous pods that are stacked up and hanging from stems as if they were on the shelves of a store carrying novelty toys that hang from their cheap cardboard and plastic casements.

They are. You are wrong. Feeble human logic has never deterred the Mother who was not.

All hail Morganna.

This PC who was not blinked its glorious, illuminating windows to its soul, which was also not. Little did it know that it had done this very act many times before. Again, it placed its hands on its entrapment and pushed. Its pod easily opened.

Again.

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The year 2015 was not a good one for the Cyber Connect Corporation.

Someone was naughty.

Someone started a fire where there should never be a fire.

Someone tried to kill Mother who was not, even though She was already dead.

This someone may have accidentally killed Mother who was in fact the Daughter.

The year 2015 was not a good one for the Cyber Connect Corporation.

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He had reached her. The PC who was not reached the Goddess who was not.

She was beautiful to him. He had always loved her. Always.

He smiled, his windows crinkling slightly in delight.

---

The Mother who was not almost died. That had never happened before.

---

He sunk to his knees in the middle of the warehouse. That's where the Goddess who was not was waiting for him. She lay on the ground like a beautiful doll. Her perfect, tan face was as still as death. Beautiful, cotton-candy bangs covered her eyes, which were undoubtedly closed. If they were open, then how come they did not radiate with such beautiful light as his own?

---

The Mother who was not began to shut down. The PC who was not was finally developing feelings. It was . . .

---

He smiled again. He wanted to touch her. Caress her perfect face. Hold her close. He had always wanted to do that, he knew. The PC who was not could just not figure out why or how.

"Blackrose. . ."

---

The Mother who was not began to fail. The PC who was not had found his voice that was.

---

His smile became that of a puzzled one. Why did he not know? Who was the Goddess who was not? Who was he?

What was his name?

"I am . . ." He paused to let a sweet-sounding laugh. "I do not know who I am." He looked down upon the Goddess who was not. "Can you tell me who I am?" He wanted to touch her arm and gently shake her awake. The PC who was not couldn't do this, however. He couldn't touch his Goddess who was not unless he knew who he was.

He crossed his legs and looked blankly thoughtful. "What makes someone exist?" he asked to no one. "What is existence? How can you tell if you exist or not?"

Maybe if he had asked someone, someone would have responded. Alas, his questions went to no one, and no one responded.

His face took on a strained aspect. "I . . . I exist. I am sitting here. I am talking. I am thinking about a problem and processing it. My purpose is to discover an answer. I have purpose, therefore I exist." The PC who was not cleared his expression to a content one and smiled.

"I must find a name."

He stood up and paced around the Goddess who was not. _If I can move and feel that I am moving, then I exist. A possible solution to existence_, he thought to himself.

---

The Mother who was not was failing. All the PC who was not had done before was walk over to his Goddess who was not, stare blankly, and erupt into a ball of light. That was the sequence programmed. The Mother who was not was to study it and wait for change. Change would never come, the Mother who was not reasoned, because she programmed the sequence to loop into eternity.

She had a purpose, therefore, she could exist a little while longer.

But something had happened that was not programmed. The PC who was not was now not a PC.

He was an AI. A Vagrant AI.

---

"I. . . I . . ." The PC who was not struggled for words.

"My name is . . .

"K . . .

"Ki . . .

"Kit. . .

He let out a mix of a gasp and ashout of surprise.

" I am-- "

Blip.

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It was noted that this particular fire spread quickly.

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Okay, I do believe this is a short, cheap, cop-outchapter. Just something to think about.Lonely Data Scraps II will be coming soon because this is in no way over.

Unless, of course, you _wish_ it to be over.

I'd love to hear people's opinions, so feel free to review.

**Note: **Any errors that you find (unless grammatical and such) are more than likely the editing system's fault. Not mine. I'm very frustrated with this thing . . .

- A I D A


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